Big news on the enterprise end came for Microsoft this week when the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that a $927 million, 5-year contract to provide technical support had been awarded to the tech giant.
This move is not Microsoft’s first collaboration with the US Department of Defense. Earlier this year, the DoD had announced that all of their 4 million employees would be moved to Windows 10 as the compulsory OS on their machines, resulting in a lot of buying of related hardware and computers.
This 5-year contract entails that the core requirements are for Microsoft to provide services that include software developers and product teams to leverage a variety of proprietary resources and source code, and Microsoft premier support services such as tools and knowledge bases, problem resolution assistance from product developers, and access to Microsoft source code when applicable to support Department of Defense’s mission. It is not quite clear whether this contract includes the usage of Microsoft web services (Azure).
Microsoft has a dedicated web page set up to explain their collaboration with the DISA. It claims that the organization has approved a new version of their public cloud services – Microsoft Azure Government.
DISA Cloud Service Support has granted a DoD Impact Level 4 PA for Microsoft Azure Government, based on a review of the Azure Government FedRAMP authorization as well as additional security controls required by the Cloud Computing SRG. says the webpage.
These types of contract are one of the best a company can get, not because of the sheer amount of potential revenue, but mostly because they are stable in nature; the government doesn’t like to cancel or reassign contracts very often.
